An Instagram post showing a neon green negative of the zoomed-in side of a KN95 face mask on a black background. Slightly off center is light beige, all caps scripted gothic font that reads ‘FREE’ [end text]. Underneath of this is a ‘KN95’ printed label in all caps bold neon green, and below this is the word ‘MASKS’ in the previous all caps light beige font. In the bottom left corner is marigold yellow all caps scripted gothic font that reads, ‘NYC & LA’ [end text]. In the bottom right corner is the SiQ logo, with the capital letters S and Q in light beige, and the blood drop lowercase letter i in dark red. To the right of the picture, the text of the post says: “SiQ recently received a donation of KN95s from BonaFide Masks to redistribute within our communities. With Covid and other pathogens circulating rampantly, it's crucial to provide personal protective equipment (PPE) to keep each other safe, especially when our governments repeatedly fail us with nonexistent mitigations or precautions in place. We must protect the millions of disabled and newly disabled populations. This affects marginalized communities of color, particularly Black and Indigenous communities, at a disproportionate level, and it is our collective responsibility to ensure that everyone has access to safety and protection. It is a human right.”
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SIQ’s Mask Distribution Initiative

Since the beginning of February 2023, a grassroot collective of disabled artists, activists, and advocates for justice “Sick in Quarters” (SiQ) have launched a community mask redistribution initiative. Anyone interested could sign up if they can hold a quantity of masks to give freely in their area.

By the beginning of April 2023, SIQ have compiled a public access database with all the private people and organisation participating in mask sharing initiative. The network span as far as NYC, Pittsburg, Baltimore, Austin, Chicago, Oregon, Vancouver and Ontario, among other cities in North America.

The collective stated that “it’s crucial to provide personal protective equipment (PPE) to keep each other safe, especially when our governments repeatedly fail us with nonexistent mitigations or precautions in place.” The action resists the U.S. government’s decision to end the National COVID Emergency on May 11 “actively slashing what limited protections and precautions we had left as we move into year 4 of the Covid pandemic.”

—Sasha Kurlenkova